Digital history matt thompson
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‘… ‘… from which to taste a from which to taste a vicarious holiday’: vicarious holiday’: Railway marketing, Railway marketing, digital history and digital history and collaboration. collaboration. Matt Thompson, University of York
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Transcript of Digital history matt thompson
‘…‘…from which to taste a from which to taste a vicarious holiday’: vicarious holiday’:
Railway marketing, Railway marketing, digital history and digital history and
collaboration.collaboration.Matt Thompson, University of York
The ProjectThe Project
Picturing the Tourist Utopia of the Great Western Railway , 1897 - 1947• Funded through the AHRC Beyond Text programme• Three year doctoral project
• University of York (IRS&TH)• National Railway Museum (non-academic partner)
• Sources:• 30,000+ images (original negatives) at NRM• Staff magazine 1890s – 1947 at NRM• Comprehensive collection of guidebooks, pamphlets and posters at NRM
• Lack of sources- very little documentary evidence at NRM/TNA… a case of ‘intention retrieval’!
Railway MarketingRailway Marketing
Lots of books- but mainly ‘enthusiast’ literature
Marketing: an import from the US?
Market segmentation◦ Present in railway
marketing pre 1914 Landscape imagery key
to the marketing strategies of the railways
Railway companies were ‘were quick to perceive the possibilities of the pictures as an advertising asset’
Railway Marketing Railway Marketing
The ‘citizen geographer’The ‘citizen geographer’
MethodologiesMethodologies
Continuity and change in the types of landscapes pictured by GWR over 50 year period.
Context of production
Changes in the GWR’s tourist Changes in the GWR’s tourist utopiautopia
Below: pre 1914- sublime landscapes, typically unpopulated. The Cheeswring from 1904 edition of Cornish Riviera.
Above: Newquay from 1935 edition of Holiday Haunts, landscapes of activity filled with tourists.
Museums and digital technologyMuseums and digital technology
‘Make more stuff available to more people’Public accessibility projects attracted
funding and staff resources◦The academic researcher is an audience too!
Agency and the context of productionAgency and the context of production
30,000+ images- not ALL were published
Able to compare images of a location, taken at the same time, which were NOT chosen for publication
GIS mappingGIS mapping
Images have associated geographical qualities
Assign each image a lat/long reference
Map the images◦ Patterns and trends
through time◦ Relationships with
changing corporate ‘territories’
GIS mappingGIS mapping
Moving beyond the museumMoving beyond the museum
Commercial Cultures projectOutputs
◦2 x PhD, 1 x post-doc, museum exhibitions, monograph
◦Mobile appAllowing access to the collections beyond
the museum walls◦A mobility collection that can be engaged with
while mobile
Digital HumanitiesDigital Humanities
Troubles related deaths in Belfast, 1968-2001.(a) Protestant civilians killed by Republicans and (b) Catholic civilians killed by Loyalists
Converting a text to a GISConverting a text to a GIS
…off I sallied - over the Bridge, thro' the Hop-Field, thro' the <pl_name visited="Y">Prospect Bridge</pl_name> at <pl_name visited="Y">Portinscale </pl_name>, so on by the tall Birch that grows out of the centre of the huge Oak, along into <pl_name visited="Y"> Newlands </pl_name>--<pl_name visited="Y"> Newlands</pl_name> is indeed a lovely place…(Source: S.T. Coleridge’s tour of the
Lake District, August 1802)
‘‘Close Reading’ with Google EarthClose Reading’ with Google Earth
To close…To close…
Thinking more about meta data associated with sources not just the content of the source itself◦Where produced?◦Has it moved?◦Personal significances?◦How can this be pictured?
Engagement with wider audiences- both academic and museum
